From mist there will come monsters

This post is inspired by movie The Mist what is based on Stephen King's novel.

So, if you haven't read the book or seen the movie before, this post will contain spoilers.

~DON'T READ FURTHER, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT MOVIE THE MIST~

Okay, now that I got the warning out of the way, let's go to the serious business.

Story

Story told short: there is a mist. In mist people dies. In mist there are monsters. Mist aint' goin' away. You gotta survive.

So, basically this is survival horror, where you are trapped in only safe place - grocery store - where mist cannot get in. In the mist lurks monsters, what will eat you. Few try to get out, but after a while you just hear them screaming in agony and never see them before. After you see actual tentacles attacking the store, you start to believe. There is something outside. First night, and you actually start to see them creepers. And bad luck, they get even inside, but you can deal with them (with only minor losses of lives).

Mist is not going off, so you need to get a solution. One needs medical help, so you forge a crew to obtain meds from the apotechary next door. You get the meds, but find out, that there's no one alive. And you loose some people. And hear dying military police saying, that "it's their fault".

Back to the shop, and planning starts. The captured people divide in two groups. Those, who want to survive and those who go religiously nuts. Religiously nuts become dangerous and demand human sacrifice while you just wanna take few good people, your Land Cruiser and drive your gas tank to empty to... get out and hopefully find help.

You get out, you drive your tank empty. You make radical decision just to find out, that there is help marching out of the mist. Army with tanks and stuff. They even got saved people aboard. But you did the choise and now you cry in agony, even if you were saved.

In rpg?

This is the easiest scenario to use in rpg. Best working in one shot or few nights mini-campaign. I quess you can take some ideas from this post, but best result is, if you watch the movie yourself (reading the novel ain't bad either, but wild quess is, that by watching the movie you get faster the idea).
There are few points following to make this scenario experience great:

1. If possible, it would be best if none of the players know the story before. If they know, it might even be that they don't recognise it if you twist the storyline abit. You don't have to make it happen in a store, but almost anywhere. Hotel, family gathering at old farmhouse, hospital, even military base (if you want more action packed).
2. Make player characters to be normal people. No secret agents, military commandos and psychic wizards. Just ordinary people. There could be guns, but as in the movie, only one or two and third in really hard to obtain place. Shooting stuff doesn't make a difference against the mist, but it will be more horrifying when you're only weapon is a broomstick. No weapons = desperation = mood.
3. There is a couple of ways to handle deaths. No one wants his player character to be first to die and watch others play the rest of the evening. Still, making player characters untoutched eats the mood. Players will figure this out, as npc's die around but they don't even get a scratch.
Try to make things look, like pc's are just as invurnelabily (<- wtf word lol) as npc's. You might even give dead character's player a new character from the npc's. Try to balance in not killing pc's at all and slaugthering them without remorse. If everyone is dead in 10 minutes, it's hard to tell the story you planned, isn't it. And if one of the characters is the poor bastard who dies first, the game is ruined for him. 4. Make things desperate. Try to give the impression, there is no way out, but there is no point of waiting for help. Characters shouldn't run to dangers mindlessly, but they shouldn't avoid risks. They should know, there is danger, but they should even try to do things what are dangerous. There is no other way to survive than risking it. How does it end?

In movie things end quite bad. Well, main character survives, but others die. How will your game end? Does everyone die? Does someone or all surivive? How do they survive, if at all?

What kind of monsters are in the mist?

• Tentacles. You don't see what's in the other end, but there are many of them. Tentacles have little spikes what they use to grab and mouth like gap, what bites you. They can slash open wounds, bite and grasp to pull. Very nasty, but with few chops can be separated with an axe.
• Bugs. Flying bugs, size of a crow with a scorpion stinger. They seem to be harmless and are food for bigger creatures. They seem to be quite harmless, but when they sting you, it's nasty. In the movie one sting to the neck made whole throat to swallow with chins. Death by suffocation (and possible poison). Can be killed with few hits.
  
• Flying creeps. Bigger than bugs. Size of a dog these nasty monsters have four wings, long beak and sharp claws. Fast and quite agile to fly. Can be killed with a shot or a couple, beating. Few was set on fire, but the fire actually didn't seem to do that much harm but to slow them.
• Spiders. Size of a cat or small dog, these nasty critters shoot web what corrode through clothing and flesh. Could be also poisonous, as one got web around his thie but was dead not long time after. They aren't tough to kill, but quite fast to run. Their web spurts slowly and is easy to avoid. They lay their eggs in human bodies. When the eggs burst, the body collapses and little critter spiders run all over the place, eatign corpses. I bet, if they get hold of you, they might eat you alive.
• Gigas. Don't know name or description for this. Walks on four legs, but after hips it has a torso ending in possible four long clawed arms. Size of a three store building. It's reach is long, and it graps people from quite long distance to rip them apart and eat. Doesn't seem to be really fast (well, it doesn't need to run), but it's claws are quite hasty and accurate.
• Elephantic. 6-8 legged, huge, looks a bit like an elephant with upper body of wiggly short tentacles or appendages. Seems to be harmless, but getting step by it's feet may feel kinda bad. Size of a 8 store building. Slow.

Where did they come from?

In the Movie, army had this special operation and the monsters and the mist came from another dimension. That is a good plot for nearly every game. Some variations especially for fantasy setting could be magical port.

What games to use?

Franly, I think you can run this scenario in any game. There is no restrictions to the system. In non-horror games this could be more a surprise factor than when you tell players to do norms in this horror game you just got an idea.

But, here I list few suggestions:

Call of Cthulhu. Isn't this obvious? In modern Cthulhu you can use the military and it's top secret research that opened gate to another dimension. In 1920 Cthlulhu remote village can be under the mist after crazy professor did his research in his mansion laboratory.

Kult. Quite easy. The curtain that divides this illusion from reality is shattered.

World of Darkness. Especially mortals. Use the military research gone wrong. In other WoD settings (like Vampire, Werewolf etc.) you could also use this, but I think supernatural event is not as efficient when your characters are also supernatural.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten. AFMBE has character creation rules for norms, what will do well. Also AFMBE has rules to create zombie. You can also use those rules to create monsters, not just zombies. Use your imagination.

Science fiction. Military research gone wrong in some planet. Also can used in space ship or space station, where dimensional portal has opened and the creepy monsters come through.

Fantasy. Dimensional portal and fantasy go hand to hand. Wizard's research gone wrong, evil wizard's research gone right. Angry gods... what ever, but it will work.

Basically, with minor adjustments you can use this adventure nearly in any game. You just need to make minor backstory adjustments to fit the setting in question. Main point is, that characters aren't necessarily the hero types, but mere commoners. That will make things more interesting. Some games have rules for mentality like Call of Cthulhu, but I quess you go just fine without them.

How to stat the monsters? Well, in Cthulhu you could use several monsters stats to fit, just alter the description. Also in many game monsters are easy to make yourself. But main point is, these aren't necessarily player characters to kill but to fear and avoid contact with. Bugs, spiders and maybe flying creeps can be killed and tentacles chopped, but others should be big and scary enough to avoid in any cost. Will, player characters will avoid them if they see how npc's die in a blink of the eye in front of them. You don't kill these bigger monsters. You try not to be killed. Bigger monsters doesn't even need stats at all.

[Rules] Fading Suns and Storytelling similarities

First, I have to mention that designers of Fading Suns Bill Bridges and Andrew Greenberg have been involved in World of Darkness (hit me if I am wrong, but Mage: the Ascension and Werewolf: the Apocalypse) and I can see that in Fading Suns.
Long before I knew this background of those developers, I had always that picture, that somehow Fading Suns was similar to WoD. Well, now it is explained to me and is quite clear why so.

Fading Suns and old World of Darkness are different game system, and ofcourse different, but there is some similarities I point out now.

Attribute + Skill

Basic mechnics to resolve what characters ability to success is quite the same. In both games you add your attribute rating to your skill rating. So, if you shoot, in Vampire: the Masquerade you add your Dexterity to your Firarms. In Fading Suns you add Dexterity to your Shoot.
Difference is, that in Vampire (oWoD) usually Attributes and skills range from 1 to 5, when in Fading Suns range is 1 - 10. So, in Vampire Skill + Attribute varies from two to ten, when in Fading suns it varies from two to twenty.
But still, (usually) both work with Attribute + Skill.

Dice

In World of Darkness you use D10, but in Fading Suns you use D20. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense and the basics is still very close. As in WoD Skill + Attribute range from 1 - 10 and in Fading suns from 2 - 20, it is not hard to see the dice. WoD highest score is 10 so the used die is D10. In Fading Suns highest score is 20 so you use D20. Makes perfect logic this far, doesn't it?

Dice pool versus Victory chart
Here comes the tricky part, but you can see, it is basically the same whether you throw bunch of dice or just one die. See, in WoD amount of dice you roll is equal to your Skill + Attribute. And (usually in normal tasks) every D10 result over 6 is one success. So, if you're Dexterity + Shoot is 7, you roll total of 7 D10's and every D10 what results 6+ is a success. So, you roll for example:
3, 6, 7, 3, 2, 9 what equals to 3 successes. Not bad!
In Fading Suns, you roll only one D20. But, you have a Victory Chart to refer. You try to get below your Attribute + Skill score to success. The nearer you get to your Att + Skl the more you gain Victory points equals successes. So, with one die roll referring to Victory Chart, you can see how many successes your character got.

Basically those are similar, even if die is different and other uses chart to reference successes and other dices.

Multiple Successes
In Dicepool system you easily see how many successes you got. Some of dice you threw are successes, some of them aren't. In Fading Suns you first check did you success (score below than your Attribute + Skill) and then refer to Victory chart with the score you got. You see how many successes your character got.

In both game number of successes tells you how well your character did. Only one success means you made it just and just, but 5 successes tells you did a great job.

Autofail and Botch
When you just don't fail, but really screw things up it's different in both games. In oWoD system if you score 1's more than you success, you fail no matter what. But if you get even one 1 but no successess at all, you botch. Something terrible happens when you fail.
In Fading Suns when you score 20 with a die, you botch. It has nothing to do with character's abilities. So, it doesn't matter are you a peasant with little battle training or lord of the lazer swords, you fail every 20th time. And in Fading Suns result 19 is always autofail.

That is the biggest difference between World of Darkness' Storytelling rules and Fading Suns 1th edition. But I think you all can see the similarities in both. Even if one uses tons of dice for a resolution and other uses one die and a chart, I think their function is basically the same.

And did I tell you how you throw damage on both of the games? Well, here is similarities more than before:

Damage
In Storytelling system you throw D10 equal to your damage rating (successes + weapons damage). Every die result over 6 is one point of damage. In Fading suns you throw D20 equal to your damage rating (victory successes + weapons damage). Every die result over 13 is one point of damage.

See, that's like 1-on-1.

I want to... game

It's been long time since last real gaming session. Where you got game master's screens, various different coloured dice on the table more you even need, pens and pencils, hand written notes and maps, few minis (well, never used those but let's imagine as them suit here now), bottles of soda and bags of candy and chips.

Wow, sometimes I miss those times. Now my gaming is about stories, and characters. Not about doin' stuff 'n' killin' mobs and takin' their stuff! That was fun. And those quests and missions back then. They didn't need logic. Some random person approaches characters and whispers, that one magic item x must be retreaved from that dungeon. Characters never questioned the motives, they were always ready to take up the challenge. They didn't care about the actual item, they didn't care why they were chosen, or what happens after. That item quest was a excuse to kill and loot and don't forget the most important, gain experience points.

Oh, those were good times. Gaming was innocent, fast, furious and fun. You didn't need to think about complex motives, or even necessary logic for someone's actions. Maybe sometimes when you are thinking those times now, stories were quite goofy. But it didn't matter. Player characters were always ready to random stuff. Wanna find my lost pig? There is skeletons in the city sewers, wanna kill them? I lost this ring, wanna retrieve it (propably there is orcs involved)? Evil overlord of grimm darkness want's to destroy the world, wanna kill him? Hell yeas to every quest! The harder it is, more xp you get.

Now it's all about character ineraction between other characters and npcs. It's all about how character and his personality would really react to different things. It's about logic and questions. If now my character would enjoy his drink in a tavern and a mysterious stranger approaches him and askes, could my character do one itty-bitty thing, my character propably would continue drinking and dismiss that person. Okay, how many character's description reads out that he jumps to every possible adventure without questioning it?

What I am trying to say, rpging back then was innocent, simple fun. Ofcourse there was complicated stories and campaigns, but still it was more about fun and gaming. You could do silly stuff or just do a quest you are provided without thinking would your character do it. What the heck, does it matter would your character do the quest, because GM knows you will do it (as a player, and as to make your character better via loot and exp).

So, as much I don't like Dungeons and Dragons (3rd edition as the newest version I own) sometimes I look at it like it would be a nice solution. I quess there is not so many flaws in D&D that I let myself understand there to be. D&D is just for different type of gaming that I am usually running. I don't need those complex rules or character leveling and stuff. I need more like Storytelling rules. Fast and simple. Not too detailed, but bending enough to be easily enough to apply in different situations.

But sometimes, a small part inside me want's to grand PC some xp and better +1 sword. See PC gain a level and see PC's character getting better. Sometimes I don't want to get involved in strange, hard and complicated vampire politics but just tell player that his character needs to find a key from the "Tomb of Skeletons" to open the chest where he would find "King's Pearl" what that dude in cape was asking for in the tavern. And hey, you don't get to keep that 10000 gp King's Pearl, but you get experience worth of one level, 100 gp and better sword, because that mysterious dude in a cape has a spare one he doesn't need. Good deal?

Agents, psychics and commandos - setting thinking

I am making my own game system. Idea is that it will be universal for me to use. So, I make these universal rules what I can use to write any setting I like to. It's like (new) World of Darkness core rulebook for White Wolf's WoD series. A set of core rules what are the basics for my ideas for settings and campaign worlds. Ofcourse, core rules introduce the basics of the rules and setting supplements add some additional rules if needed.

So, I have this idea of playing a group of characters. Game is great for solo-gaming with one player, as it is agent action. Agents work alone, you don't need other players to accompany you in the quest. Player has three different kind of characters:

1. Agent. Agent does the background work. He gathers enough information about the situation in hand for the psychic to use.
2. Psychic has various powers, but most powerful of them is mind control where he can possess the subject to further investigations or even commit the quest himself. If this doesn't work, then there is a:
3. Commando/assasin, who does the hard shooting things work.

Basically, here is one possible scenario. Agency knows about this drug lord. Drug lord is well protected, makes great harm for the goverment and needs to get out of business. Full scale operation with police forces would be an unecessary massacre and the problem is, that the main subject could very well escape during the "cleaning" process. So, Angency sends his agent to spy. Agent himself doesn't directly involve in operation physically, but gathers information. Agent learns, that drug lord has this trusted vale who visits one particular nightclub. Also, this trusted vale has a great access directly to meet this drug lord. Agent takes few pictures and steals something personal for this trusted vale. Agent takes gathered information and items back to agency.

At agency, information and items are delivered to psychic who is in mind tank. They are usually weak by body but strong in mind. Mind tank is sort of cyberware enchanting the powers of these physics. Physic gets the information about trusted vale, then he sees the pictures of him, maybe a video tape. Personal belonging is necessary to body possession. When psychic is sure he can possess the trusted vale and act as him, he does it.

Trusted vale is now in possession of psychic from agency, and now agency has access to that drug world and no one has a clue in drug circles what's going on. Psychic has two options. He can learn directly from drug lord himself, even try to assasinate him by possession. But main thing is, that by possession psychic gains inside information about estate, guards etc.

Now they know, what drug lord is going to do in certain day at certain time. It is time for commando to do his job!

In general agents are these agile and cunning persons, psychist have great mind and commando are power and destruction. So, player has three different characters what complete eachother in the quest.

Game is ment to be one-shot fun, fast action. Different mission type quests. There is this problem, deal with it agent. Long term campaigns could involve quests what are linked together in a bigger picture, or you can just throw a simple search and destroy this bad guy scenario. It is quite much problem solving. You can play agent's personal life in home, or psychics feelings about agency (does he feel he is used because of his powers) or even remorse of commando for killing stuff. But what the heck, that is not necessary. Do agent missions, have fun, that's the idea!

For characters there will be different skills to use for agents, psychics and commandos. If psychic isn't good at driving car, his possessed subject is neither. That is a obstacle to win (otherwise psychic would be overpowered). So basically psychic cannot know things that the subject doesn't, but cannot make tasks greater that subject is capable of. In addition of that, there is ofcourse gadgets for agents and commandos, and guns for commandos.

So, psychic action spying is the name of the game!

(As basic rules for my systems is still under development, I haven't this far written this more than few sketches.)

This is the question/answer I have seen several times and now found it again, so I'll answer it for my own joy.

1.) What is your game about?
Doing agency missions using different abilities of three different characters. Solving crimes and dealing with criminals in a whole new way.

2.) What do the characters do?
Agent character is to gather basic information for the quest, psychic character is to advance in that information or even engage the quest and commando is to deal with it with power.

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?
Player uses his wits and imagination to solve agency quests. Player is responsible to handle the outcome and process to that outcome. Gamemaster is to develope a scenery. He makes the plot for a quest and also details information for player to use.

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
Setting is near future. This special agency is well hidden in byrocracy, so it isn't known to excist at all. As world is near future, you can easily adopt this world to it. Just add a bit more fun gatgets to use.

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?
One player has three different characters to use in different situations differently. In different situations different characters have merits to do them. So, basically player can teamwork with himself.

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?
Rewarding witty player. Player has quite free hands to commit the quest. There is no right way to do it. Add PC games Hitman and Splinter Cell together, and you are getting pretty close. Players get reward for using their brains to solve this quest. Punishment, well, if you screw up in agency, you are exterminated (joking).

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
If player isn't active, nothing happens. Player must be active and willing to use his brains for this game to happen. If you are looking for long tea party conversations between characters, this is not your game. If you are looking for xp shooting up things and taking their stuff, this is not your game either. If player is not willing to problem solving, this is not rewarding. If he is, this is.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
Gamemaster gives the situation (report) and gives information for player as player investigates. Lots of gaming is happening as player goes along.

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)
If you don't put your mind in this, you aren't getting anywhere. But all what happens in this game (except maybe the commando part) is up to you, player. You and your investigations are responsible for the conclusion.

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?
Basically charasteristic + skill roll under. There is a small twist though about critical successes and failures, and player can twist propablities. You can get opportunity to have greater percentage to success with even weaker character, but risk to botch is greater. Fast rules with a bit tactics added to make it fun.

11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?
Rules are generic (for my games atleast), so I try to make rules to fit in fantasy setting or science fiction aswell.

12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?
They gain xp from quests done. When enough xp it's lvl up time and dividing stuff for your character. Level can be like rank in agency. 1-3 quests done should lvl your characters up and advance in skill.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
More you quest, more easier it gets. But maybe the quests from the agency will be harder (and more xp rewarding) then.

14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?
Excitement of making quests. Character isn't doing it, you are. You have to use your brains, so when you obtain information, you will feel good, because it was your idea. And after collecting that information the hard and innovative way, what's more fun than start to blow brains out?

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?
Easy and fast. One night games.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?
Idea of one player using three different characters with different advantages and solving the quest with his own wits. That you don't have to think about a campaign, just think about a scenery and run it.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can’t, don’t, or won’t?
You have several different options for one quest to accomplish. Other games do that also, if not railroading, but hey, this is a sandbox of one situation. You don't run all over the game world looking for things to do, you got this one thing to do. Question is how you do it.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?
To get it done. To get fun out of it and hopefully someone else having fun out of it.

19.) Who is your target audience?
Ofcourse myself, but also those who like agent action and would like to run one-shots without horrible amount of preparation.

So, that is the idea in nutshell. As I said before, haven't written one single "official" word about it yet. First things first, make the rules to work, then write agent-psychic-commando action packet.

1000 and 1 characters

Some time ago I saw this challenge at RPG.net (cannot find the topic anymore), where idea was to create character to all games you own for your blog or what ever. I found it really cool idea. If you are a bit bored, this is fun way to get time to pass. I have thought about it some time, and liked to do it. Not necessarily to "officially" announce my share in RPG.net, but for my own fun and challenge. Would be cool also, if I could illustrate the characters - even if the illustration would be kinda amateur-ish, it would definately add extra flavour for my challenge.

I was thinking, what game should I start with. Obvious option to start would most definately be Vampire: the Masquerade. I could do a character 3am in the morning after waked up without rulebook. But that would be a bit too easy.

I decided to start this with the game I am playing now, Fading Suns. Fading Suns is really cool game, and I suppose I haven't done ever a playing character, only npc's. So, in some day I will do a Fading Suns PC to this blog. With a picture (at the moment my scanner from stone age isn't working, so no idea how to transfer the picture to computer. Camera maybe?)

One thing to concider is what type of a character I would like to do. There is several options alone in core rulebook. You can do nobleman from several houses, a guilds member, religious church member, aliens like Ur-Ukar, Ur-Obun and Vorox, barbarians... I have to really give a thought about the character concept, what kind of character I'd like to actually play.

This wouldn't be a challenge, if I'd just simply stat characters. No, I think they need flesh and skin around their bones also.

If I would do a noble from a house, it would be from The House Decados. They are cool, evil, dark (atleast I have that kind of picture of them). In my image they are like Lasombra form Vampire: the Masquerade, or Peacekeepers from Farscape (especially Scorpius and Grayza even if Scorpius is halfbreed with Scarran).

From religious orders I would go with Temple Avesti. Really bad ass witch-hunter. With plasmapistol, vibrant blade, flamethrower, grenades. You get the picture. God(damn) battlemachine of the Lord.

Choosing from Guild would be a bit harder. Those all work good equally, but I think I would choose hot headed Charioteer pilot. Or cyber enchanted Engineer.

From aliens and others maybe Vorox. I have never introduced a single one barbarian, so it could be a challenge to create a character from.

So, as you can see. There are many options for me to choose, what also I find very interesting. I need to give a good thought for this, and be back in business shortly. With a character for Fading Suns.

Lost in Space

In scifi, even if you can travel between planets, systems and stars, space is huge. Even if you can travel long distances relatively fast, it doesn't take away the fact, that space is infinite. Even if humanity has found and conquered planets before unknown, there is always space never before travelled.

Space is your second home. If you are in the crew of a spaceship, space is normal for you. You don't fear it, you don't necessarily even give a thought how small you are there. You think you have travelled long distances, yet in the universe it doesn't even matter.

You know all the places humanity has discovered. You know those alien races. If you haven't visited all the planets or met all the races, you have heard of them.

But what if you get lost?

You and your shipmates travel through a Jumpgate to another location. Location well known. But when you exit the Jumpgate, what if there is nothing? No spaceships, no planet's visible. What if your radar or Thinkmachine cannot scan or recognise the place. What if your ship's database doesn't know where you are.

And what if the Jumpgate you travelled through remains shut, because you don't have the right code for this before unknown gate.

Your crew has two options. Remain still waiting Jumpgate to randomly open or die. Or start to discover, what this place is. Where you are. And most importantly, how to get back to known worlds.

You will meet planets you didn't even know excisted before. You will encounter races you have never heard of. They all speak unknown language, but with a living worm in your brain you can understand them. You and your crew haw lots of currency, but it is not valiable here. They use money you haven't ever heard of. If something costs 50k you don't know how much it is. Is it in anyone's reach, or duke's yearly income.

You encountered alien. Never seen that kind of creature before, but it seems to be friendly. He leads you to planet, what used to be a civilization but now is just a wasteland. You have a plan, try to find coordinates to the Jumpgate to get out of here back to where you belong. Or even get a map upload for your Thinkmachine to get idea where is your current location.

But there is a problem. Everything has it's cost and you don't have got any of right currency. You can buy nothing. No maps, no codes, no food. And you cannot even leave this planet. Take-off costs.

Fading Suns campaign about being lost in space. Great fun this far, and as it is totally unknown location or even universe, I can add what ever I please. Nothing is strange enough here. Everything can happen. And as you don't have any documents needed here, no passports, no ID, did you really think the great Imperial Guardianship will leave you unnoticed?